Burnett’s article exhibits two persistent misunderstandings about inerrancy. First, he contends that the doctrine of “inerrancy” in the “original manuscripts” is a novelty of recent vintage. Such arguments were all the rage in the 1970s, but careful historians now recognize that inerrancy language can be traced back to the early and medieval church periods.

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But why does inerrancy matter? The ARP Church rightly recognizes that a denial of the full authority of the Bible inevitably leads to the sort of “cafeteria Christianity” that now characterizes the mainline churches in this country, as people pick and choose those aspects of the Christian tradition that they find congenial and ignore that which conflicts with the broader culture. That sort of subjectivism destroys the mission and witness of the church, and the ARP Church objects to it with good reason.